


(baby I) love the boom

by arabellagaleotti



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Author's Favorite, BAMF Maria Stark, Bombs, Gen, History, Italian Tony Stark, Maria Stark's Good Parenting, Origin Story, Photographs, Photos, Project Manhattan, The Atomic Bomb, Tony Angst, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark's Childhood, Tony-centric, american pride, howard worked on the manhattan project, i guess, so this is kinda insensitive but it's meant to be written like that, tony stark - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 06:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18935293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: Later, someone asks him, he’s not sure if it's at a party or an interview or at a press conference, because, frankly, it’s all a blur and sometimes it seems like he leaves a club and steps into a bright-lit conference room.“Why do you do it?” they ask, “why do you kill and explode and make bombs?”And he can only grin, a little lopsidedly, lean forward, try not to trip, and laugh.“Baby, I love the boom,” he says, and he feels it in his chest, the mushroom cloud expanding and flying into the sky, perfectly, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico blue.He’s not sure if anyone ever even asked, and suddenly he’s sitting in his workshop, looking at the clean, white lines of the walls only interrupted by half of a dismantled gun or a car engine, and there are pictures on his lap, papery and thin, his mother’s face staring up at him, judgement in her eyes. He wonders for who.“I like the boom,” he says again, and not even JARVIS answers.OR,Maria Stark was a photographer, Howard Stark worked on the Manhattan Project, and Tony Stark is a child, and what else is a child to do but learn?





	(baby I) love the boom

Maria Stark was a photographer.

She grew up in Italy, surrounded by the sea, by vineyards and orchards and growth, a warm house bustling with life and people and food. Her early photos reflect that, dinner tables filled with people, the wild, grey sea crashing against cliffs, the symmetrical, perfect lines of a vineyard running straight down the scalp of the earth like braided hair.

She decided to leave her corner of Italy, where everyone knew everyone and the most adventure you could get is venturing into the already well-explored woods to the north of the village. There’s a few scattered pictures of her trip to Milan, where the big airport was, but they’re too excited to be any good.

Once in America, she found herself chasing the coattails of white, pretty pale girls, blue eyes and blonde hair, big skirts and milkshakes. The perfect Americano life; far different than her dark hair and dark eyes, the immigrant Italian girl with a camera around her neck.

When she landed, she found herself a home in New York, some little place in Queens, Howard happened to be passing by, when she was taking pictures of the pigeons and people and cracks in the sidewalk and god knows what else.

The rest is history. There aren't many photos from her dating Howard, most are just pictures of him, smiling, happy, mellow, machine grease on his forehead, in work stained clothes. Some are taken by surprise, in the middle of him laughing, or chowing down on noodles. There are a few of her, young and beautiful, not yet the mother he knew and far from the simple girl who left Italy.

There are plenty of pictures from their wedding, all white and money and Maria’s happy face, There are more pictures of the guests with their hats and dresses than of the bride and groom. Tony wonders what went wrong. They seemed happy.

Then after, as a high society woman, glittering with pearls and gowns, sneakily taken photos of rich extravagance that only the 1% will ever experience. People forgot, once she ascended to society, how they had whispered about the brown girl, the gold digger, the filthy Italian thief who stole one of their people. They forgot, but she didn’t. There’s enough dirt inside those pages to fill a landfill.

Then Tony's childhood, a few pictures of a smiling boy, curly-haired and red-cheeked. He was a quiet boy, but shone with a curious light. She used to tell him he was going to change the world, and he believed her. 

The Maria Stark foundation, pictures of meetings, of galas, then of the people they help, some with Maria, some photographed by.

Peggy and Howard and Obie and Angie and Maria and Ana and Jarvis, all smiling and happy and maybe a bit drunk, two years after the war or twenty.

She used to lie down with him on his race-car bed, tuck the cartoon-patterned sheets around them and flick through the picture book with him, until it was dark and he had every single one memorized, every page carved into memory. He still remembers the sound of fingers flipping through the pages with a certain magnitude, a certain meaning that he was in awe of. Some were in color, some were grainy, some from film and some in black and white, but all were beautiful. She had a gift for it.

Tony’s favourites, though, were the explosions. He’d hide his face in her hair, inhale her perfume; that ungraspable scent that always floated around her. He could never figure out what it was. He never did.

She knew Howard when he was in Los Alamos, when he was working on the atomic bomb.

First, there are the pictures of them in a workshop or in the hot New Mexico sun, a few of a bar with dim lighting and blurry faces, and it’s  _just_  unplaceable enough not to immediately place, and then there Howard is, there Maria is, sitting with Oppenheimer. Edward Teller’s fiddling with something out-of-frame, Leslie Groves next to him.

They’re surrounded with history, with the thing that will kill 381,000 hundred thousand Japs, but for now, forever, in this moment caught in sap, petrified in time, it’s just a few scraps of metal and an idea.

After that, the focus diverges from Howard and group scenes, and onto Maria’s artistic side. Generals with their hats and uniforms lined up like toy soldiers forgotten outside in the sweaty Alamogordo sun. Their noses are shiny, faces flushed and ruddy. They look like plastic, about to melt.

A dusky, smooth desert sunset, with the yellow half-disc of the sun sinking down the horizon like melting butter. Gold, yellow, red, the colors of Iron-Man. Of night. Of a few scientists in the desert, trying to help their countries. Of life in death, maybe.

Later though, past the conventionally beautiful, almost hidden at the back of the book are the explosions, and the aftermath.

They're big and bulging, filling up the sky, mushroom clouds the color of dirt. Some of them, you can practically hear the sound wave through the paper.

They should be monstrous, should be horrible, disgusting things, the lowest of humanity, but how can something that can soar 60,000 feet into the sky in a matter of minutes be so bad?

There were seven major tests, and it looks like Maria has every single one of them captured on film.

Tony sees it not as death, but as mankind, beautiful in it’s destruction, beautiful like nothing else can be beautiful, because only it can kill like it does. People look at him strange, sometimes, when he talks like that. Pretty soon he stops, after Obie sends him to a therapist. 

Maria had told Tony once, whispered in his ear, that she’d never seen such a thing before, that she never would, that watching it hurt in her chest, because there it was, billowing up from earth, about to disappear in between heartbeats.

And then, taking up two pages, commandeered, surrendered to their power, their brilliance: Little Boy and Fat Man.

Fat Man, in his roundness, his laden belly full with poison, with radiation, with death. Tony always imagined a smiling, jolly face on the head of his snub nose.

Little Boy like a submarine, diving from the sky, swimming down to land, his square propeller spinning behind him. Tony imagined his own face on this one, serious like he only practices in the mirror. It’s important work. He has to be important.

They would spend what seemed like hours staring at these killers, these killers with one of the highest kill counts of the war. 155,000 on impact, and 226,000 from radiation. Maria would hold him, hide her face in his hair, and it almost seemed like she knew who he would become, what his own kill count would grow to. He wonders what she thought then, what she would think now. She always told him he was going to change the world, is this what she meant? 

He guesses he knows why he didn’t argue when SI was shoved into his hands. He’s always loved demolition. Whether it be his own or the world’s. That’s why he is who he is, why he does what he does. Why he fucks and drinks and makes jokes when he shouldn’t. It’s why when people say his name, they know who he is. Tony Stark. Right?

There are pictures of the testing site after. He likes these just as much. Maybe more, even. There’s a finality there that’s missing in the moment. A certainty.

Green, glassy Trinite suspended in the air, maybe thrown, maybe permanently suspended by the arms of the atomic bomb, Tony doesn't know. He suspects the latter.

There's a crater, 5 foot deep and 30 foot wide, left in the dusty, rocky ground, the parallel of that cloud, the reverse of creation, destruction.

Howard and a few other figures, clad in rubbery radiation gear, faces obscured. Tony knows it’s Howard because he’s holding a cigarette and a flask of scotch, and trying to persuade the others to have a light and a drink with him, Tony can hear him telling them to celebrate their legacy.

It sure is a big one.

\--

He’s 20, and it’s been many years since his mother last held him and flicked through picture books and he doesn't even really remember the smell of her perfume, anymore.

He’s 21, and they’re dead.

He’s 22, and he’s alone.

He’s 23, and he finally knows what it feels like to be one of those explosions, to be so destructive that everyone around either left on after a night or was never there to begin with.

He’s 24, and now he really does _understand_  those bombs. The urge to destroy, to burn, stronger than anything else.

He’s 25, and...tired.

He’s tired of the parties and the girls and the taste of blood on his tongue from where he’s bitten it to stop himself from screaming at all of it.

He’s tired of the company asking him  _tony tony we need those designs tony tony are you done with those specs tony tony remember you have responsibilities tony tony your dad would be proud tony tony do you have any ideas?_

He’s tired of Ty pushing pills into his hand and giving him a drink to down them with.

He’s tired to having to call Rhodey in the middle of the night because he’s off on deployment.

He’s tired of Obie, Obie and his shark grins and big hands and deals.

He’s tired of the press and the journalists and the gossip.

He’s tired of Tony Stark. Who he is, what he stands for, what he does. He likes the shattering, sure, but it’s getting harder and harder to pick up the broken pieces.

He thinks back to Anthony, to that little boy who didn't have any of that, just his mama and a photobook and silence in a big house.

But, Maria Stark and Maria Carbonell are both dead now. That photobook is dust and that big house is gone, he had it demolished as soon as possible.

Anthony is buried next to his mama.

\--

Later, someone asks him, he’s not sure if it's at a party or an interview or at a press conference, because, frankly, it’s all a blur and sometimes it seems like he leaves a club and steps into a bright-lit conference room.

“Why do you do it?” they ask, “why do you kill and explode and make bombs?”

And he can only grin, a little lopsidedly, lean forward, try not to trip, and laugh.

“Baby, I love the boom,” he says, and he feels it in his chest, the mushroom cloud expanding and flying into the sky, perfectly, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico blue.

He’s not sure if anyone ever even asked, and suddenly he’s sitting in his workshop, looking at the clean, white lines of the walls only interrupted by half of a dismantled gun or a car engine, and there are pictures on his lap, papery and thin, his mother’s face staring up at him, judgement in her eyes. He wonders for who. 

“I like the boom,” he says again, and not even JARVIS answers.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know what this is, it's kinda cool, but also kinda weird???
> 
> idk, let me know what you think. 
> 
> i would also like to note that this is kinda insensitive to the japanese and all that they suffered in terms of that. tony is also written to be v self-destructive and kinda crazy although i don't know how well it came across. so yea.
> 
> hope you enjoyed!


End file.
